Your income tax refund failed to credit — how do you raise a refund reissue request online?
Your ITR refund was approved but never hit your bank account. Here is exactly how to raise a refund reissue request on the e-Filing portal, why refunds fail, and how Section 244A interest works.
You filed your return on time, the portal showed "refund determined", and then nothing arrived. Weeks later your bank passbook still shows no credit. This is one of the most common post-filing headaches, and the fix is a self-service refund reissue request on the e-Filing portal. Below is exactly how it works, why refunds fail in the first place, and what happens to your Section 244A interest while you wait.
The Scenario
Consider a salaried taxpayer who filed her ITR-1 for Assessment Year 2026-27 in June 2026, showing a tax refund of Rs 12,500 because her employer over-deducted TDS. The Centralised Processing Centre (CPC) processed the return, issued an intimation under Section 143(1) confirming the refund, and marked it "issued". But the credit bounced back: the bank account she quoted had been closed after her old branch merged into another public-sector bank in 2024, changing the IFSC.
This is a refund failure, not a refund rejection. The money is sanctioned and still owed to her; it simply could not reach a dead account. The Income Tax Department does not chase you for fresh bank details automatically. Under the process set out in the official Refund Reissue user manual (incometax.gov.in), the onus is on the taxpayer to raise a reissue request once a validated account is in place. Until she does, the Rs 12,500 sits unpaid indefinitely.
The trigger conditions are narrow. A refund reissue is available only where three facts hold together: you have a registered e-Filing account, you have a filed ITR for which a refund was determined, and that issued refund has failed to credit. If your return is merely pending processing, no refund exists yet, so there is nothing to reissue.
Statutory Answer
Two provisions of the Income-tax Act 1961 govern this. Section 237 gives every assessee the right to a refund where the tax paid exceeds the amount properly chargeable for that year - this is the source of the Rs 12,500 entitlement itself. Section 244A governs the interest the Department must pay on that refund, currently 0.5% per month or part of a month, which works out to 6% per annum (indiacode.nic.in).
The interest question matters when a refund is delayed by a failed credit. Section 244A(1) runs interest from 1 April of the assessment year up to the date the refund is granted, where the refund arises out of TDS or advance tax and the return was filed on time. Crucially, Section 244A(2) carves out an exception: where the proceedings resulting in the delay are attributable to the assessee, "wholly or in part", that period is excluded when computing interest. Quoting a closed or un-validated bank account is precisely the kind of taxpayer-side delay that can be excluded, so a slow reissue can quietly cost you interest.
The reissue mechanism itself is administrative rather than statutory - it lives in the e-Filing portal's service catalogue, not in the Act. The prerequisite that ties statute to process is bank-account pre-validation: the Department will only credit a refund to an account that has been electronically validated against the PAN and the bank's records (incometax.gov.in). No validated account, no credit - regardless of your Section 237 entitlement.
Why refunds fail before they reach you
Most failures trace back to a mismatch between what the portal holds and what the bank holds. The table below lists the recurring causes and the fix that must be completed before a reissue can succeed.
| Reason for failure | What triggers it | Fix before reissue |
|---|---|---|
| Account not pre-validated | Validation never done, or lapsed after an update | Re-validate under Profile > My Bank Account |
| IFSC changed after bank merger | Branch merged (e.g. PSB consolidations from 2020-21) | Add account with the new IFSC, then validate |
| Account closed or dormant | Old salary account shut after a job switch | Add an active account and validate it |
| Name mismatch (PAN vs bank) | Bank name differs from the name on PAN | Correct records at the bank, then re-validate |
| PAN not seeded with the bank | Account never linked to PAN | Link PAN at the branch, then validate |
Each of these blocks validation, and without a validated account the reissue request cannot proceed to verification. Fixing the underlying bank record is therefore step zero, not an afterthought.
Worked Resolution
Take the numbers concretely for Assessment Year 2026-27 under the default new regime. Our taxpayer earned a gross salary of Rs 15,00,000. The standard deduction of Rs 75,000 applies under the new regime, leaving taxable income of Rs 14,25,000. Because taxable income exceeds Rs 12,00,000, the Section 87A rebate of Rs 60,000 does not apply here (it is available only where total income is Rs 12,00,000 or less). Her tax works out as follows.
| Step | Amount (Rs) |
|---|---|
| Gross salary | 15,00,000 |
| Less: standard deduction (new regime) | 75,000 |
| Taxable income | 14,25,000 |
| Tax on Rs 4,00,001-8,00,000 at 5% | 20,000 |
| Tax on Rs 8,00,001-12,00,000 at 10% | 40,000 |
| Tax on Rs 12,00,001-14,25,000 at 15% | 33,750 |
| Total tax before cess | 93,750 |
| Health and education cess at 4% | 3,750 |
| Total tax liability | 97,500 |
| TDS actually deducted by employer | 1,10,000 |
| Refund due (Section 237) | 12,500 |
The Rs 12,500 refund is real and sanctioned; the failure is purely a payment-rail problem. To recover it she logs in to the e-Filing portal and follows the reissue path exactly as the user manual sets it out:
- Go to Services > Refund Reissue after logging in with her PAN and password.
- Click Create Refund Reissue Request - the screen lists the specific record where the refund failed for AY 2026-27.
- Select that record and choose a pre-validated bank account (the newly added account with the correct post-merger IFSC).
- Click Proceed to Verification; the portal re-checks that the chosen account is validated.
- Complete e-Verification using Aadhaar OTP, a Digital Signature Certificate, or an Electronic Verification Code.
- On success a confirmation and a Transaction ID appear on screen and are sent to her registered email and mobile.
On the interest side, if the reissue is completed four months into AY 2026-27, Section 244A interest at 0.5% per month would notionally add roughly Rs 250 (2% of Rs 12,500) - but the months lost purely because she supplied a dead account can be excluded under Section 244A(2). The practical lesson: validate a live account and raise the reissue quickly, because every month of self-inflicted delay is a month of interest you may forfeit.
You can sanity-check whether a refund is even due by re-running your numbers on the income tax calculator, confirm which regime minimises your liability with the old vs new regime comparison, and reconcile deducted tax against Form 26AS using the TDS calculator. If your refund arose from a mismatch flagged during processing, our explainer on the defective return notice under Section 139(9) covers the adjacent correction route, and the piece on which Chapter VI-A deductions survive the new regime explains why over-deduction is now more common under Section 115BAC.
FAQ
Why did my refund show as "issued" but never reach my bank?
An "issued" status means CPC released the payment instruction, but the credit can still fail at the banking layer - most often because the assessment year account was closed, the IFSC changed after a merger, or the account was never pre-validated. The refund is not lost; it reverts to a failed state and waits for a reissue request against a validated account.
Can I raise a reissue request for an old assessment year?
Yes, provided a refund was actually determined and failed for that year. The Create Refund Reissue Request screen lists each failed record separately, so you select the specific year's record. If no refund was ever generated for that year, the record will not appear and there is nothing to reissue.
Is there any fee for raising a refund reissue request?
No. The refund reissue service on the e-Filing portal is free. You only need a registered account, a filed return with a failed refund, and a pre-validated bank account. Anyone charging you a fee to "release" a genuine refund is not operating through the official incometax.gov.in channel.
What if I entered the wrong bank account and the refund went to someone else?
If a credit reached an unintended but valid account, that is a banking dispute rather than a reissue matter, and you must escalate through your bank and, if needed, a grievance on the portal. Reissue only applies where the refund failed and reverted - not where it was successfully paid to a wrong-but-valid account.
Do I still need to e-Verify if I already e-Verified my return?
Yes. The refund reissue request is a distinct action from filing, so it carries its own e-Verification step via Aadhaar OTP, DSC, or EVC. Verifying the original ITR does not verify a later reissue request; skipping this step leaves the request incomplete and the refund unpaid.
How do I know the reissue actually worked?
On successful submission the portal displays a confirmation and a unique Transaction ID, and sends the same to your registered email and mobile. You can then monitor progress under Services > Refund Reissue and via the refund status service; the status should move from failed to the reissue being under process and finally to credited.
Will the Department pay interest for the period my refund was stuck?
Interest under Section 244A at 0.5% per month applies to eligible refunds, but Section 244A(2) permits exclusion of any delay attributable to you - such as supplying an un-validated or closed account. The faster you validate a live account and raise the reissue, the more of your 6% per annum interest entitlement you preserve.
Sources & Citations
- Refund Reissue User Manual — Income Tax Department
- Income-tax Act 1961 - Section 244A (Interest on refunds) — India Code, Government of India
- How to Pre-Validate a Bank Account — Income Tax Department